Wicked
by ThatClutzsarahh
Summary: Hope, we just need a ray of that.
1. Chapter 1

**so i figure, if Peter is allowed to spiral out of control, then why not Olivia? Here is a story i hope isn't too OOC about her and her own path of destruction. THis will probably have another few chapters to it, but i wouldn't be counting on any with forgiveness and make up smut. I just don't see that in the near future (WAHHHHHHH)**

**M for language and bluntness.**

**

* * *

**

Her lungs were ready to burst.

But she wasn't ready to stop.

She pushed forward with each stride, each powerful leg hitting the ground and stretching out to pound the ground again, to carry her farther away. But she couldn't out run herself. But she could try.

Somewhere behind her she had lost her mind, maybe three or four miles back, and she was too numb to feel the icy rain sliding down her pink skin. She just ran. She wore next to nothing, tiny black shorts and a black sports bra, her hair pulled up into a pony tail and her fringe pinned tightly against her skull in an attempt to look everything but like her double. She thinks of nothing, just of running, pushing, driving, forcing, herself onward. She couldn't feel her body begging, pleading, for a rest and it didn't bother her.

Somewhere up ahead she'll collapse to the ground again, just like she always did on these runs and she will think to call him for a brief second. But that's all it will be, a brief second, before she picks herself up and turns around, walking back to her apartment. She'll feel the cold against her sweat slick skin then, and she'll feel just how wet her hair is, but she'll be too tired to care.

It may not kill her today. It might kill her tomorrow. But she's not scared. She's Olivia Dunham. She doesn't die.

* * *

She's become thin. Dangerously thin. She figures this out when she goes shopping after Christmas, when the designer labels are on sale for nothing and she gets bonus. This time the bonus is bigger than every before, an extra $10,000 that her old self would never need, but she takes it without a word. She'll spend it all on true religion jeans.

She figures out just how tiny she is when she pulls on a pair of $300 jeans. They're her normal size and the fall hopelessly from her body. Two sizes down and still no luck. She asks for a size that she hasn't ever been, a size 24 and she fits into them, but not without a belt to hold them up. She buys 6 pairs of jeans for no reason. She doesn't need them.

She spends another $500 on a sexy black dress that barely covers her ass and fits her like a glove, showing just how skinny her body is. Her hips poke out in a way that makes the saleslady's eyes flare in jealousy, but all Olivia sees is sickly. She's becoming skin and bones and she isn't sure why, just that she is. She doesn't want to even remotely shape herself like her double and being over three sizes smaller makes her feel different. There is one point somewhere between the Chanel silk blouse and Dior sunglasses that says maybe she should save some for later, but it's a fleeting thought that whips away in the ringing of a register.

She'll spend it all as long as she becomes anyone but her double, anyone but herself.

* * *

Her bank account could never afford a meal at a place like this. But with her sudden wardrobe change and her model like figure, she's landed herself a date with a man twice her age and six times wealthier than she would be in her dreams. He saw her leave a store in New York, offered her coffee and she felt surprised that he didn't know her. He didn't _really_ know her. And he asked for a date and she accepted because he'll never _actually_ know her, he'll just know what he wants to hear.

She had stopped by the lab to drop something off wearing her tiny black dress. She didn't really have to drop it off that night, she just knew everyone would be there and she was right. She strolled into the lab in her tiny black dress and spiky silver heels and she could feel Peter, actually feel Peter crawling over her skin even though he was across the room. She could feel a pool forming under her tiny thong but edged the desire away by handing Astrid a file. She smiled.

"Hot date?" she asked teasing. But Olivia would not tease back.

"Yes."

* * *

"Maybe you should get laid more Peter."

She regrets it the moment it leaves her mouth. They're fuming, their faces pressed almost together as they stand near her car in the parking lot. His jaw flexes and relaxes and he's oh so angry with her. Her silk blouse flutters in the light breeze and she wants him to do nothing more than rip it off her and fuck her in the parking lot, right there in public parking lot until she can no longer walk. But they just stand there, so angry at each other.

There is a ghost of a bruise on his jaw, a light forming of discoloration that she could see from her vantage point. It's underneath his cheek and she wants to reach out and touch and kiss it away but she sees his eyes and remembers. So she goes back to staring at him angrily.

She doesn't give him a chance to retort with his wicked retort. She realizes that her words, at the moment she said them wound her. And she sees the red he sees and he's almost about to snap at her, to tell her the ugly truth and remind her why she's built up her new façade when she walks away, turning on her heel. Peter watches her walk away.

The retort hangs in the silence.

* * *

Sometimes she wishes Alex wasn't so good to her. Instead though, he sends flowers to her office at the FBI building and one day, somehow he manages to locate her office in the kresege building and send her cupcakes there. It's sweet and so gentle and nice that everyone falls in love with him, everyone but Peter and herself.

She just wishes they would fight once. She wishes he would do something wrong like stay after hours in his big CEO office on Wall Street to sleep with his secretary. But he was simply _perfect_, and she _hated_ it. She was looking for a reason to run to Peter, to fling her arms around his neck and say everything went horribly wrong. But nothing will go wrong because Alex is _perfect_.

He's nearly 50 years old but she doesn't care. He makes her feel like no one. And for once, she _loves_ it. He's an unsuspecting soul who never knew her before all _this_, and she treasures that knowledge. He doesn't care about who she was or what she _is_, but instead showers her mercilessly in flowers and tiffany's jewelry because he believes he loves her. She visits him at work when she doesn't have to work, dressed up in a St. John's silk shirt and Calvin Klein pencil skirt with sky-high heels that should kill her and he's genuinely _happy_ to see her.

She sees one day that a Frank Stanton works for him, somewhere in the building. He's some kind of medical consultant lower down on the food chain and she shouldn't _care_, but she does. She knows in this world she and him never met, so walking up to him and looking at him like she did to _his_ alternate would not be such a bright idea. She certainly knows him well, every inch of his skin and she's never seen him naked before.

Funny how things work out here.

* * *

Today is the day Peter snaps. He snaps like a tree branch heavy from snow, only he does not collapse in a heap on the floor of the lab. There is a blue bag waiting in Olivia's office, a blue _tiffany's_ bag fro her and when she sees it she smiles. She does not see Peter across the lab behind the tank, where flames leak from his eyes. Astrid lingers around Olivia just a bit and Olivia invites her in. The two girls swoon over the bag, pulling out a box that contained a necklace. It's big and beautiful and so very expensive that Peter feels the air being yanked from his lungs. Olivia is completely oblivious to his obvious distain and she holds it up to put it on.

She wears it the entire day she spends at the lab, her fingers fiddling with it the whole time. The diamond stone is so very large and delicate in her fingers and she loves to run her fingertips over it. She thinks perhaps this is what love feels like, that she has fallen _in _love with Alex, and that he was no longer buying her affection anymore. She has this glow about her that allows her to move gracefully through the lab, a hum _almost_ on her lips. She does not notice the distance Peter put between them until it was time to leave.

"He's good to you," he says as they are putting on coats together, "You deserve to be happy."

And it all but breaks her heart. She looks at him but he does not look back, his eyes trained perfectly over her shoulder to Walter as he puts away the remnants of an experiment. She notices the bruise is no black and there is another one in the corner of his eye where blood has leaked into the white. He does not look down at her while she examines his face. She feels her bottom lip trembling and everything spiraling, spiraling out and away, out of her control and grasp. And before she can register it he walks out the door.

Somewhere something has gone horribly wrong.

* * *

It's dark and it's raining and she's been crying for hours. There are two bottles of whiskey in the trash at home and while she knows it's not the smartest idea to be driving around drunk and in the rain, she does so anyway because she can't think clearly. In the back seat of her SUV are all her fancy clothes and gifts. Alex didn't want them back. He said he understood her choices because he loved her. He fucking _loved _her. So she's driving in the middle of the night to a house she knows she'll never be welcome at again in just her short running shorts and a black sports bra.

She skin and bone and that's all. Her hair has lost its magic shine and her eyes are red and wet. Her whole body has lost its magic glow and looks dull and frail, sickly even. She _feels_ sickly. This isn't love she tells herself as she drives, serving and dodging headlights, because love isn't suppose to kill her. _Love_ is just an image of her mind. It isn't real. Love won't be her murder. She doesn't want _anything_ anymore. Everything has just spiraled away from her. Everything is gone. It's the same feeling she had when she returned. She didn't belong here. Nothing is her. Only this time, she did it to herself with no help from a dopplganger.

She barely stumbles up the steps to the house she isn't welcome in. Her car is parked in the center of the street where the icy rain is melting away the interior of her door. She doesn't care anymore. She pounds on the door with her fists, her whole body _shaking, shivering_ and she is surprised to see Astrid there. Astrid has never seen her like this as she crumples to her feet. Olivia begs, pleads for Peter.

And it is Astrid who tells her gently that he isn't home. He isn't there.

* * *

And thoughts? reviews? :D :D :D


	2. Chapter 2

**and a peter pov. next i think is Astrid, since she's kind of in the middle of everything. maybe'll it'll continue on. anyway here it is**

**i own nothing. :D **

She won't let him get two words in. He starts with her name and she stops him with "It's fine" or "You don't have to" and even, "I understand." Even if what he had to tell her had nothing do with _anything_ between them she cuts him off. He doesn't have the chance to explain anything to her. So, he figures, if it is silence she wants, it is silence she will get.

But that silence is _unbearable_. The weight is so heavy that his shoulders ache when he gets home at night, his body _physically_ aches. There isn't an amount of steaming water that can wash it away, this pain, _this_ weight that rests on him. She's allowed to spiral out of control, she's allowed to completely change into someone else but he has to stay constant, he must stay the same. She can change but he cannot.

So the weight that he has to be strong is the crushing weight on his shoulders when he lays in bed at night. It seeps down his shoulders and applies its pressure to his chest, slowly but surely suffocating him. The weight should kill him, but it doesn't. The only thing that kills him now is Olivia and her expression. She is unraveling slowly and steadily and he must bare the weight of staying together.

But he unravels too.

They found him one night behind a bar he didn't know or couldn't remember. Face down in the vomit stain concrete, he was rolled over with a heavy boot, a light shined on his face and the sound of drowning voice in his ears. Squinting he opened his eyes. His body ached, ached like no tomorrow, and his face felt swollen. The face that he met was a familiar one, but not the face of the female he loved. They had found him. Eddie had come for him again.

They said they watched him get beaten by six guys after he knocked out a man four times his size. Of course Peter can't remember this, and he stands ready to feel as fast as he can from the man who put the hit out on him. But Eddie tells him to relax. He's here to help. And Peter is weary as he is hauled to his feet, staggering a bit from the sudden vertigo and a bit from the drunken haze he's still in. He is much shorter than he remembers, and Peter towers over the fat man in a black wool trench with a threatening stance. There isn't much of a mark on his face but he certainly feels something there. Eddie looks at him and then down. He offers him a proposition.

It's more like a blackmail treatment and Peter has to say yes. He's given a choice between living and dying and he's selfish enough to say he wants to live. For Eddie he'd always been muscle, a bouncer at his clubs, the thug behind drug deals and his world-class fighter. But since illegal fighting isn't really Eddie's thing anymore, Peter's becoming his car booster. It's the only thing that'll keep him alive.

After all he owed Eddie his life, again.

Olivia looks like shit. Her whole body just looks so frail and tiny. He just wants to grab her by the shoulders and cave them in to show her that she is so breakable now. Even under her new fashionized wardrobe, he sees her frail body. It was in the lab did he notice how dangerously thin she was. She was there, bent over something that Astrid had showing on the computer. He minds his own business a few feet away, hovering ever so subtly. She doesn't notice him as she writes something down on a piece of paper. Her pen drops and she twists, exposing to his view, six very countable ribs through her shirt.

He stops breathing. Eyes wide he stares as she twists around to pick up the pen, throwing her hair of her should bone, holding the skin up. It was _unnatural_ for fuck's sake. She twisted back around, each rib sticking itself back into its natural place, the shirt slowly hiding them again. His fists are balled tightly, so tight the whites and scars show. His jaw flexed angrily and his eyes were flaring. He wanted nothing more than to rip open her shirt and touch, _snap_, every rib of hers he could see. It was _fucking_ wrong.

But of course she didn't notice the flare of his eyes. She thanked Astrid and straightened. Her blouse was silk and it just hung over her. It just covered her, _hanging_ there. Peter wanted to be _physically sick_. Olivia looked at him right then, and almost in a mocking tone spoke to him.

"You look sick, Peter."

_No, it's you sweetheart_.

He got into it with a man from the chop shop last night. Peter threw a fist. The man threw a crowbar. Peter had nursed his sore and most certainly cracked jaw in the small room above the shop with Eddie as he was being told how sloppily he did his job. Peter listened as the shorter fatter man told him to be careful and Peter had to choke back the irony of the statement. He could care less if he were to be shot.

The next day he heads to the lab for a normal day without Olivia. He tells Astrid he fell down the stairs during one of Walter's acid trips and Walter thinks he pushed him by accident. The injury escapes suspicion because Olivia isn't there to see it was a façade. He spent the day slaved over work, not once seeing her step through the door.

It wasn't until he was ready to leave did she appear. She appeared in a sweep of hairspray and some sweet scent that made his noise crinkle. She looked like she belonged somewhere but here. In a tiny black dress, Olivia looked like he could just toss her onto the ground and she'd shatter and disappear. She strode in on heels that looked uncomfortable and a scrap of material that left him nothing to imagine. She strode in and spared him a glance, a pitying glance as if he was strung over her. _Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart_, he thought bitterly.

She gave him another glance, a glance that said, come and get me. He felt a growl build in his throat but he refrained. Her eyes dared him, just dared him to move. If he had reached for her, would she have offered herself up or would she have shot him angrily? He realized then that she looked nothing like the Olivia he fell in love with. She reminded him of _her._ With a shudder he looked away from her. Astrid commented about her outfit and she commented back but Peter wasn't listening.

That night he was at his very best as he boosted cars. He felt invincible and he wasn't sure why.

Eddie told him to get this car. He knew it was a plant car. Some poor unfortunate soul had left their Mercedes in a park and ride overnight and it just sat there, ready to be taken, snatched away by someone. That someone was Peter. He stood on the other side of the parking lot fence with a crowbar in hand. Eddie had given it to him for defense, but he didn't need it. He knew it would be easy to take the car.

The hard part was out running the cops. It was a test that Peter had to pass, a passage rite back into the mob. Peter knew the car had been planted with an alarm system and he as he cracked the parking lot attendees head open on the cement, he was already counting just how many seconds he would have before the cops found him and he'd out run them. He knew the streets well. He was in the car and hotwiring it before he even heard the sirens.

He of course passed Eddie's little test. Speeding down an alley a thought crossed Peter's mind. If he were to get caught, would Olivia come rushing from her date to ask him what he was thinking? What would happen if he were to flip the car and accidentally purposely kill himself? Would she cry for him? A twisted smile formed on his face as he shifted gears, propelling himself around a corner and flipping around another one before cutting the lights and engine. The cops zoomed past him.

If he were to die today, would she come for him?

God he feels guilty. He feels so _fucking_ guilty. But he shouldn't. So why does he? He sits up and wraps the sheet around his lower half of his body, staring out the window of the shady motel. The vacancy sign blinks red at him, little neon letters that echoed the feeling he had in his heart. _Vacancy_. He looks over his shoulder at the girl sleeping next to him, her bare back shimmering in the light that seeps from the window. Her skin shimmers beautifully and he just wants to puke up his insides onto the ground in front of him. He's so sick. He feels so sick with himself. _Fuck me_ is all he thinks.

She is not _her_. "_her"_ is probably out with him, that man with more money than brains doing something expensive and fun together. They could be at a nice party or a ball. They could be out to dinner or at a Broadway show. They could be on his boat or at his place. _She could be in his bed_. Peter's hand fisted into the damp, sex scented sheets. He dropped his head and stared at his bare feet. He glanced over his shoulder again at the woman curled up. She was a pretty blonde, Amanda, from his past. He couldn't quite remember how he had gotten here, but with the fuzz in his brain, he guessed alcohol had something to do with it.

He had pulled out his cell phone as he slid his clothes back on. His shirt was crinkled and he had difficulty finding his belt, but once all was found, he had shut the motel room door and felt the cool air rinse over his skin. He dialed one person.

"Where are you?"

"Motel."

"I'll be there."

Astrid wouldn't ask questions. She never had to.

Eddie put him back in the ring last night. He took three blows to the face in one fight, two blows to the ribs in another and one in the knee during the last fight. He had knocked all three opponents out. After nursing his body in an ice bath he went home to lay in bed and think of her again. He didn't know why, but he felt wrong when he went around with Eddie. But Peter Bishop was a criminal at heart. Hell, he stole her heart and _fucking_ broke it. He was nearly a sociopath.

She rarely shed her sunlight on the lab anymore. He had accepted more than his fair share of roses and sweets at the lab and they sat, piling up and wilting in her office. Kind of like how he was wilting. But he wasn't wilting. He was wasting away. The darkness that embodied him was cold and unforgiving. If she ever came by the lab her rays would gleam on him perfectly. He just wanted her back in his life, if only for the rays of sun she shed on him.

Today it's not a flower arrangement he sets on her desk, but a blue tiffany's bag. He knows its over now. He can feel it in his soul. The ice that was gripping him took over. It burned his skin even more when she came in, a happy look on her face. Astrid played both fields. She didn't pick sides. But she gave him a pitied glance as Olivia fiddled with the necklace.

It took him all day to work the courage up to say something to her. And when he finally did say something, it was the right something. It was over. There was no battle left for him to fight. She had already gone away. He felt like he was fighting for Helen of troy. She was Helen and he was certainly not Paris. Paris was _Alex_, the man that treated her so perfectly. He started his own battle, Peter did, and he was fighting now till the death, even if she were not going to be there to see him die.

"He's good to you," he had finally said as they were leaving. She of course turned her angelic face to him, but he looked over her head to Walter. Astrid was near Walter and she turned her head in privacy. He could feel her eyes roaming his face. He would remember stoic for her, because he felt ready to cry himself. "He makes you happy."

And he left before he gave her the chance to answer. He had no intention of ever coming back now.

It's raining and cold and Peter is getting the _shit_ beat out of him somewhere in San Francisco. The ocean is in the background somewhere, and the lap of waves help to loll him into unconsciousness. There is a man on the ground already and Peter has shot him so he is _dead_ and he's getting a beating to death. But he won't go down without a fight. It's probably 3 in the morning at home and she's probably enjoying a cozy cuddle with that _man_ in his mansion while he's dying on the street or harbor.

Maybe this finally what he deserves, he thinks as he throws another punch. It's 5 against one and Peter is the one. All he thinks about is her right now, and how if she could see him now maybe she'd finally feel okay. Maybe if she saw his bloodied face, beaten and swollen, that she'd finally see her own errors. Every action causes a reaction. So whose action caused this, his or hers or theirs? He feels a rib crack under an arm and the air hisses from his lungs as spots dance around his vision. He thought briefly to call her to help, but she's too far away. This isn't her war anymore. She made her choice and her ghost wasn't worth fighting for. _But it was._ Peter fought for her ghost. He fought until he couldn't stand, and with a blow to the knees he fell to the cold ground, eye level to the man he'd shot. Down here he wasn't so big.

There are sirens in the distance and the men scatter instantly. Peter is coughing up blood and fighting for consciousness on the ground. He hears the sirens getting closer and thinks maybe he's saved to live another painful day. Would they call his family? Olivia? Peter feels so much pain, each raindrop that hit him was more pain. Maybe he wouldn't die here on the streets. Maybe he'd die like a coward in the hospital after the doctors did _everything, _every _fucking_ thing to save him. But his body wouldn't respond. He would shut down.

And only he could think is that she wasn't there. She wasn't there.


	3. Chapter 3

**and here is astrids point of view. There will be a chapter after this. i can't leave it here. i promise you that. I want to thank all my reviewers (all of you i admire greatly) for reading this, even though it lacks smut at the moment...**

**so here is what Astrids thinks and does. She's harder to write.**

**I own nothing**

**

* * *

**

Colors.

She lived her life in colors. Vibrant oranges and precious pinks, her closet was like a crayon box waiting to be used, the slightly less favored yellow and orange crayons standing out and on parade while the nubs of blacks and browns were shoved behind them. Astrid shifted through her clothing and wondered, for not the first time, how she had gotten so many reds and purples and yellows in her closet.

She knows she's making up for the lack of colors everyone else has around her. The world is becoming dark, a bleak places that is only shades of grays and browns and she doesn't want to be that. Those colors are not who she is. The world is fading away, she feels and by keeping the luscious carefree colors she can perhaps keep some balance in the lab. Perhaps she can fix things without saying anything.

It's a pink day, she decides and settles on a pink sweater top that will go well with her pants. The neck is just low enough to show her pretty purple blouse with gold buttons and a silken texture. She smiled at herself, a peach lipstick making her teeth seem whiter to her. For her: the brighter the better. In her cozy little apartment Astrid headed to the kitchen for her yogurt breakfast. Everyday started out normal.

She so wished they would end that way.

* * *

Sometimes she wonders if she asked for a transfer that she'd receive it. She wondered though, through all the information she gathered, the numbers and cases and classified other worldly knowledge if it wouldn't be easier to just kill her instead. She knows she knows too much to quit now. But there are days, _weeks_, when she figures there is something _happier_ out there for her. Somewhere.

Today is one of those days.

Peter is in the lab, shoulders hunched and spine sticking up as he looks over a piece of broken lab tech. Astrid scrubs random circles with a sponge on the stainless steel autopsy table as Peter fumbles with red and blue wires. His body is tired and weary and she can see it in his posture. His normal clothing has gone to dark colors and she doesn't say anything. She knows why. It doesn't take a genius to see the reason behind his decrepit spiral. In fact all you need is one eye.

In a sweep of what looked like exhaustion Olivia Dunham entered the lab, her heavy black coat being shed instantly from the heat of the lab. Her shirt just barely fit, the tiny fabric hanging as if it were much too large for her. Her skin looked so exhausted, so tired. She looked just as bad as Peter.

"Jesus Peter, it's hot in here," she pants out and Astrid watches the interaction. With them it was like hell was on a leash, and it took just the wrong step to make hell snap and break that leash and suddenly run loose.

Peter lifts his head slowly, gently and meets her eyes. Astrid watches that interaction, the delicacy in which he holds her up, and then suddenly every drops and shatters on the floor. Astrid sees Peter's eyes flare and his arms flex, his whole body _rattles_ at her. She regards him with fire licking eyes and he strides around stiffly, turning his back to her and switching the heater off. There is no smirk on Olivia's face and Peter turns around with his jaw flex. There are no words said, but there are plenty implied. Olivia finds herself bored and grabs her jacket, the one she shed _seconds_ earlier and heads out of the lab that she entered moments before. When the door swings closed, Peter leaves out the door and turns the hall the other way, leaving Astrid alone.

She doesn't get paid enough to clean up this mess.

* * *

She looked thin. Dangerously thin.

The men in the lab would never notice, men never do, but Astrid can see it as she tries to hide it behind a shirt that once fit. Women know when women are sick, and Olivia is ill. Astrid figures it is lack of proper food and over exercising but she isn't sure. She doesn't know how to tell Olivia that she is too skinny, too tiny. So she keeps her mouth shut for now.

Tonight Astrid works late and so does Peter. Olivia left earlier and Astrid was sure she wouldn't see her again today. But when she came back into the lab in a tiny, tiny dress, Astrid couldn't believe her eyes. She was so skinny. Her hip bones poke out in the little black dress, two round knobs that looked so wrong, so strange, so _fake_, that Astrid isn't sure what she's looking at. Olivia balances on sky-high heels, teetering on two stick legs that look so wrong. She strides up to Astrid and hands her a file with a smile.

"Hot Date?" Astrid asks, joking.

"Yes."

No longer does Astrid think this new look is a joke.

* * *

She had to cancel her date again tonight to pick up strawberry ice cream for Walter. Michael, a sweet man who owned a family moving company understood when she called him. She had been seeing him for a while and he was the first to not run away from her in a long time. It seemed to Astrid, that her job simply freaked people out. She of course told Michael about Walter, a slightly insane scientist she worked with and how his son Peter was normally there to care for him. But when he wasn't, Astrid cared for him. Michael understood. He was a family man.

Walter was fine when she arrived, a small fire having been set in the kitchen when he had filled his pie with powder soap instead of baking powder. There was fire retardant everywhere, the white foam on every surface in the kitchen. Walter was fine, looking slightly frazzled. Astrid sighed.

"Where is Peter?" she asked him gently, taking the bag of ice cream and putting the container in the freezer.

"He's very tired, I didn't want to wake him," Walter said. He shuffled by her and reached for the ice cream. She was sure she wasn't going home to see Michael anytime soon.

Hours later, after the pie and soap and foam had been cleaned and the kitchen sparkled, Astrid leaned against the counter and sighed. Walter had had his ice cream and had fallen asleep finally in his room near the kitchen. Feeling rather curious as to Peter still sleeping, Astrid rounded the stairs and toward his room.

What she found was he wasn't there.

* * *

Olivia and Peter were at it again. This time it was something small, something as minor as a case detail that didn't concern Astrid, but she had been _dragged_ into again. They were there in the lab, face to face, Peter's jaw taunt like a tight rope while Olivia's eyes flared. Olivia's fingers were tight around a flower that she had plucked from the vase in her office. Her fingers clutched it tightly, the petals of the ting curling and wilting as she held it.

"I don't understand why you're so upset Olivia," Peter nearly roared in the lab, his arms flinging to the side. Olivia's eye would flare up at him her, hair swinging around as she turned on him. Her finger jabbed at his chest and he shuddered in anger, shoving her tiny hand away in a clamp that she recoiled from. Astrid wasn't sure why, but she was always around and always involved in these fights.

"Just go back to her then," Olivia spat angrily, throwing her crunched up flower at Peter. She turned and fled for the door and Astrid watched it slam before turning to the crumpled mess that was Peter on the floor.

Astrid was good with words and emotions. She could deal with hers, her families and even her friends. But Olivia and Peter were the same, they wouldn't want to hear what she had to say. Astrid had tried that once and she was shot down. She had so much to say to Peter, but she refrained from saying anything, scrubbing circles on the table.

One day she'll say exactly what she wants. But that isn't today.

* * *

He had woken her up with a phone call and she could hear just about _everything_ in his voice. Crawling from the comfort of the bed she loved, Astrid asked only one question.

"Where are you?"

There were a lot of words that flooded her mind as she drove to get him, a lot of _colorful_ words, nearly as colorful as her wardrobe. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel in almost a death grip. She wasn't fully awake yet, but she found her way to the motel she knew Peter would be at. He stood outside the front office with his hands shoved in his pockets. All the angry words she had for him _dissipated_ at the mere _sight_ of the miserable son of a bitch. Hair ruffled, eyes clearly blurry, Astrid pulled to a stop and opened the door for him. He didn't say a single word. He didn't have to. His body odor gave it all away. And she suddenly felt more sorry for the man than ever before.

She drove him to his house and turned the car off. He didn't get out. He stared away from her out the window at the looming home. Astrid watched his shadow in the moonlight. He ran a hand over his face as if her were wiping tears from his face.

"You must think I'm a fool."

But she doesn't. She won't. Astrid knows so much about life that she can't think him a fool.

"You're just lost."

* * *

Astrid doesn't believe he is lost anymore. He is gone, yes, but he had long ago found himself and departed without word because he doesn't want to be found anymore. Astrid believes he is losing it, much like Olivia is as she begs for him from his doorstep. Olivia is pink and bare and oh so cold looking, her eyes red from both alcohol and tears. She begs for Peter, cries for him and Astrid can only look at her gently, brown eyes wide and heavy with pity.

"He isn't here," she says gently and all hell breaks lose. Olivia is a maniac, shoving herself roughly into the house, screeching his name at the top of her lungs in a panic, her whole body so slight and trembling. Walter appears in the doorframe clutching a tiny teddy bear and watching the strong FBI agent he knew falling up the stairs. Astrid smiles at him kindly and follows Olivia up the stairs. She's stumbled into Peter's room and is clutching his sheets, fingers curled tightly around the sheets and she sobs, heavy, body-shaking sobs into the fabric.

Astrid had seen this coming a while ago. She stands in the doorframe and watches her as she clings so tightly to the sheets, murmuring sorries and goodbyes into the empty sheets. Behind her the phone rings but she thinks nothing of it as Walter picks it up. She could hear his voice talking downstairs and she stepped closer to Olivia. She had a lot of words to say, a lot of "I told you so's" and "It's all right's" but she can't find her voice to say them. Olivia is twisting in the sheets and rolling around like a maniac but Astrid won't stop her. She looks _pathetic_ there. Astrid sighed and approached her, soothing back her hair from her face.

She had just sat down by her side when there was a crash from downstairs and both Astrid and Olivia jolted, sitting up right ad looking toward the kitchen. Astrid went first, timidly stepping down the steps, gripping Olivia's hand to keep her from stumbling. She entered the kitchen and saw Walter on his knees, hands bloodied as he pressed his palms into glass, trying to pick up the larger shards before the smaller ones. Astrid swatted his hands away and grabbed them. Walter wouldn't look at her, tears staining his face. Astrid pulled the glass from his hand and looked at him.

"What is it, Walter, what is wrong?" she asked. He looked her in the eyes.

"Peter's dead."


	4. Chapter 4

**and that last episode makes me sad. but yet the last two episodes have made me sad. i fear the worse, he will end up with alternate and we will be left to watch olivia go insane. Anyway here is chapter four since i told you i couldn't leave you haning. If you get bored of this sotry, telll me because in all honest i have no idea where this is going at all.**

**M obvious.**

**i own nothing except the typos.**

**

* * *

**

She always has flashes every time he touches her. Her memory flashes images of _them_ together, pictures painted in beautiful detail with painstaking accuracy that it frightens her and she feels violently ill. Since she came home she's shied away from him with obvious discomfort, unable to hold down her lunch when he comes near. She can't stomach the images. She can't handle the ideas. She just wants to scrub him away with cyanide and an acid solution until he's nothing but this carnage puddle of red blood and half-eaten organs. She just wants him gone, forever. She can't handle his touch.

But he is dying now and she holds herself together as he grips her hand.

He probably thinks of her as he holds her hand, and she just looks away from him. She was better, always better and it wasn't fair because they never had that chance and she won't ever have that chance. She doesn't care anymore. She won't care anymore. She knew, somewhere inside her, that she had taken over everything and that he really fell in love with her and that now Olivia was back, she was a faulty replacement. Damaged. Always damaged. She won't be more than a damaged puddle full of things that she and him never did because he and her did them together. It was unfair, it was cruel, but that was how her life had always been, and it will always be.

So if he mumbles her name in this hospital bed she won't let it touch her heart because he's thinking of her.

So this is it, the end. Walter is with Astrid outside and in the private lobby they have, crying loudly, Nina is out there too, somewhere with them and Olivia is here with the doctor, because Peter has refused to release her hand. He doesn't know it's her consciously, but she is there and cannot move from his grip. Everyone is losing it, but she is calm and collected and sure. His death won't be like John's death, she figures, because he's lying in a hospital bed and not in her arms.

And John loved her. Peter did not.

The doctor says something about brain damage and internal bleeding and something else but Olivia doesn't hear. She knows what it means. It means he's going to die right there and that he won't wake up from it. There will be no universal battle or universe destroying machines now. Peter will no longer have to worry about fireballs from his eyes and sleek black metals that will carry his fate. Instead he will die here in the hospital bed surrounded by family and friends.

Fate will be kind to him. Sometimes Olivia hopes it will be just as kind to her when her death comes.

* * *

It's the worst news she could have possibly been saddled with. He was going to live. And Olivia just wanted to explode in anger. It was not fair there was nothing fair about this. The news caused her to get up in a sudden rage and storm from the private lobby and down the hall. She could see the golden gate bridge from the windows and the fog rolling in to cover the city in darkness but she didn't care. Peter was going to live. This isn't okay. It will never be okay.

Nina chases after her, a sharp 'Miss Dunham' falling from her lips as spoken first, then yelled as she stops at the elevator. Olivia presses the button again and again and Nina is gaining ground and Olivia is out of air. She's dizzy, so dizzy and she can't feel anything but the needles that were her tears as she slid down the stainless steel to the sterile floor that was the ICU. Nina caught up with her and stood above her and although Olivia couldn't see her face, she knew exactly what look she was giving her.

People give her looks as they pass her. The elevator dings open but no one gets in, only a doctor gets out. He looks at her crumpled form and then up and Nina but doesn't say anything. Olivia is not hysterically sobbing or sobbing at all, but just sitting there on the sterile, uncaring floor and staring at her hands. They are shaking and shaking violently because she wasn't able to out run her own emotions. She tried but couldn't. Everything has caught up to her and she has gone completely cold and numb and she likes feeling. She feels mechanical, like a machine. It feels better than being human. But it takes a brief shoulder tap to bring her down to her reality, to tell her she's still human and Nina reminds her that Peter should have died. He should be dead.

"Peter should have died."

* * *

She didn't go in the room. She wouldn't. After time and time of Walter telling her that he was asking, _demanding_ her, she still refused to go in. Nina tried. Astrid tried. But she stood on the outside of the room with a coffee in her hand, slept in the hallway and sat against the wall when the nightmares came. She wouldn't see him. He was supposed to be dead. It wasn't until she was jolted awake in the middle of the night by his voice that she would acknowledge he was even there.

"Olivia," his voice would roar for her, "Olivia!"

His deep throaty threatening tone made her body heat and flush and he screamed out for her, hollered for her, adding on "I know you can here me" and "I don't think you are sleeping's" occasionally. He would call out for her until he coughed and spluttered into silence. Sometimes his heart monitor would beep insanely as he cried out, her name sounding _pained_ on his lips. But he can call all he wants. She will not see him. She will not let him in.

She herself doesn't understand it, as she pukes up her coffee for the third time that day, but she won't see him. If she could stop retching for a second she'll be able to faintly hear him crying out for her, her name loud and thunderous. Even the doctors beg her to see him, beg her to easy the yelling. But she can't. She psychically can't walk into his room. She has tried, standing outside as he cried for her, his voice loud and angry, her own feelings a raging sea of cruelty that makes her want to bleed. Once she has stopped vomiting she looks up and stares in the mirror.

"Olivia!"

"Olivia!"

"_Olivia!"_

_

* * *

_

She was no good at the hospital, but she was no good at the precinct either. Instead of looking for the ones that attacked him, she spent her time in the morgue with the man he killed. It was eerie, looking at the man on the slab. His eyes were green, a beautiful emerald green and his face was round and shadowed with dark stubble, the same color as his short curly hair. It was eerie not because he had murdered someone successfully, but because he murdered this man. This man looked like Peter more than she could ever know. Which is probably what compelled her to reach out and touch his hair, to feel it.

She never got to touch Peter. Maybe this dead man would be his replacement.

She pulled her hand away from the man and mulled around the office, looking at unforgiving stainless steel faucets and hoses, tools and jars and platters and plates. Her eyes raked over the body and the angry red stitches that sewed him together. A single bullet to the middle of the head-that was his choice. The man had no chance to fight back. Perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps there was some fucking metaphorical shit behind murdering a man so similar to himself. But Olivia didn't want to know. Olivia didn't want to care. But there was the problem. She would always know and she will always care. She had so many questions.

Why here? Why now? Why leave her? She deserved, she knew more than that was true, but why? She did exactly what she knew she should, she moved on. It was very clear he would miss her more than he would care for Olivia. She could cry and pity herself and mourn his loss, but that would do no good. She would not let that happen. And yet this happened. It was all because she moved on. What gave him the right to nearly kill himself because he of her? What could the motive possibly be?

It should be him on this slab, not this look alike. Maybe then, and only _then_ would she understand his motives. Then and _only_ then would she understand what he did was for her. He flew here to prove to himself that she was the one he wanted and not the other her. He was at the hospital calling out her fucking name because he wants her. Here, in the silent concrete walls his cries would be silent. Her name would be a whisper. But he isn't here, he is there and she must face exactly what he has done. She must come to terms with the fact he did this for her and that his stupidity is the reason her head spins and her body is weak. Somehow he is to blame for her illness. It the same to say she is to blame for his illness.

Peter should have died again. Then there would be no illness. There would be no fault. If Peter Bishop had died now, there would be no destruction of himself, of Walter, of Astrid, of Olivia and the _fucking_ universe.

Instead he lives and she must come to terms with the fact he wants her but she no longer wants him.

* * *

i know not alot of sections, but alot of chapter i think. next up is Peter, obvs. maybe there will be some walter, nina and (my personal favorite) Brandon.


	5. Chapter 5

**i lied. tiny smutness here. maybe later. **

**angst angst angst.**

**Summary: Peter comes to terms.**

**M.**

**i own nothing but the typos.**

**

* * *

**

"Olivia!"

"Olivia!"

"_Olivia!"_

His voice is hoarse and cruel and oh so loud as he calls for her. He has been at it for days, the constant calling of her name. He knows she is there for he can hear her when she cries in her sleep, right outside his door and its _kills_ him, fucking _kills_ him. But she refuses to see him, refuses to step in and see him in pain and he hates himself for it. How could he possibly be so stupid? It seemed to be too easy for him lately, stupidity just seemed to be a habit now. The doctors tell him to rest, but he can't rest and if he could walk he would walk right out into the hallway and wrap his arms around her and squeeze her until she can't breathe.

But instead he wastes his voice calling her without rest, because he won't rest. He can hear her argue with the doctors, he can hear her instability in her voice, her wavering sound as she says there is no way to get her in there. And one night he hears the doctors talking, finding someway to get her to go and see him so he can stop his ridiculous wailing. They thought of drugging her or simply carrying her in and he screams louder because she needs to be safe. Everyone is out for her, he figures and he's crying like his life depended on never stopping saying her name because he needs to protect her.

And one day it was as if he heard her because she was not there. And Peter did not cry out for her because of it, instead he slept dozing in and out between Walter's nosey visits and Nina and Astrid's retrevial of him from Peter's space. He spent an entire day without calling for her, and it was peaceful for everyone around him. He felt uneasy. Had she gone home? Had she left? Was she too, somewhere in the hospital, comatose because she worried for him? For one entire day he lay in a cold sweat. It was then he realized that life without her was death. He couldn't simple stay there. When he heard the elevator ding late in the night and soft hesitant footprints he started up again. Because he knew, he knew it was her.

"Olivia!"

"Olivia!"

* * *

One step forward.

He moved slowly, cautiously. Olivia was ahead of him with her head down, watching her steps as she climbs aboard the private plane. While Peter is moving slowly on the outside, his brain is moving faster than a raging sea. She suffers in silence. But she's acting like she's the _only_ one suffering. He is suffering too, both humiliated and in actual pain that she is just ahead of him _thinking_ about him, calling him _names_ mentally. And she should because he is a _fool_ for doing this to her, for foolishly _fleeing_ and breaking her again. Her shoulders sag when she thinks no one is looking, but he sees it and he watches her when she drops her defenses slightly. She is humiliated for him, or so he figures, and he feels just that much worse.

He gets her alone when she stands up mid flight and heads toward the bathroom of the airplane. The door to the bathroom isn't locked and he can hear her slightly sobbing, _choking_ subtly on her tears. Leaning his cane against the outside of the door lightly, he pushed it aside. She straightened quickly, but not quick enough because he chewed his bottom lip at the sight of her crying. Her red eyes stared at him with so much sorrow in them his own eyes pricked with tears. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing but a sob came out from her lips. He shut the door quietly behind him and locked it, reaching for her and touching her smooth cheek gently.

Her lips were warm and soft, a light salty residue on them as he kissed her. He does not know who started it nor does he care, as long as it is not a mistake or that he will be shot for it. But if he were to be shot then he would not mind because it is _her_ tongue that is invading _his_ mouth right now, and her body that is leaning against him with a bit of pressure. He spins them and lifts her, his mouth not leaving hers. His hands cradle her head so perfectly and she wraps her legs around him. His erection is so clear it should be embarrassing, but she is just as wet for him as he is hard for her. He rubs his hand between her legs just gently, feeling her rocking into his hand and her hardening nipples through the fabric of her -and his- shirts. She moves her fingers across his shirt and stops. There is a warm and wet spot. She pulls back and lifts his shirt. The stitches have popped slightly and bloody ooze is coming from a cut on his skin. It brings her back to reality and she looks at him, silent tears on her face before she scurries out past him.

Two steps back.

* * *

Her car is parked outside his house.

But he thinks nothing of it until he nears. He walks around it with a slight limp, and through the tempered and tinted glass he sees a mound of clothes and gifts, each on thrown carelessly into the vehicle, the owner not caring if the silken fabrics wrinkle or stain. He walks with his head turned and he does not tear his eyes away until he has to make a step, lifting his leg slowly and carefully as he climbed the familiar stone steps. She did not come to the house with them, at least she has not _yet_ for she has their luggage in her lent car. She will also have Broyles in that car who will want answers to many questions, including the reasoning for a man lying dead in California. Peter did not even like California, it seemed to him that people there cared less than anywhere else. And yet that was where murder took place, where he jumped the line from shady to killer.

His sheets smelled very strange, and as he lay on them and turn his nose into the pillow, he recognized the sent as familiar. There was a prominent scent of whiskey which was most likely from him, but a mixture of the smell of rain and something else. As he twisted and fisted his hands in his sheets he tried desperately to place the smell, inhaling deeply as it swirled around his lungs, filling them, covering them, _coating him_ in pure sweetness. Then he recognized it. There was a lingering smell of light scotch and coffee, the fresh scent of rain and a small hint of saltwater tears. There was a scent of smallness, a delicateness that was just so perfectly _female_ it made him ache all over again. Olivia had been here, _crying_, in his bed. It was the only explanation to the smell. It was her. So perfectly _her._ He inhaled. He exhaled. Inhaled. His exhale sounded like a ripping sob. And that was what it was. A ripping and tearing cry.

Peter Bishop does not cry.

* * *

"Your stitches popped again."

He is bleeding right through his white shirt, a small pool of blood that is staining the cotton fibers and turning them red. He presses his fingers gently to it and lifts them, staring at the color that lifted onto his fingers. He doesn't care.

"I know."

She has her stone cool FBI face on, the same mask she wore when he met her in Iraq so many years ago. It could have something to do with him or something to do with the fact Broyles stands next to her, his own mask worn heavy. Peter is in sweats and a white shirt that was slowly turning red. He blocks them in the door and Olivia is hunkered down in her FBI jacket that has always been just a bit big for her. But it is _hanging_ off her tiny frame, the sleeves clearly pushed up past her hands to dangle around the bones that make her wrists. Stepping aside he lets them in. They enter and he shuts the door and heads to the living room.

"Do you want to get cleaned up first Mr. Bishop?" Broyles asks with seriousness as he stands near the couch. But Peter sits. This is him, bleeding and all.

"No."

He'd rather bleed in pain now, then bleed in pain later.

* * *

reviews? comments? Love? hate? theories? Suggestions? love? What did you like about this? What didn't you? :D


	6. Chapter 6

**i really love this story. It allows me to really stretch how beautifully i can write things out. Thank you everyone for the amazing comments and reviews on it because they mean alot to me! I'm having fun writing this because i can further explore a relationship betwee two characters. i'm feeling smutty so smut with e in here (yes i lied) anyway i'm continuing, AND IF YOU DIDNT SEE there is a new chapter of oh olivia up.**

**summary: getting closer mean bleeding more**

**K+ or T or M i can't really remember.**

**i own just the typos.**

**

* * *

**

She watches the fabric of his shirt and sheets turn colors slowly. He is lying perfectly still and his breathing labored and it is the third shirt that he is staining, the little fibers changing from a dyed blue to a bloody red, his white sheets smearing and changing to pink and then a dark red, nearly black. She should peel them back and strip him of his shirt, help him to clean up and then throw his clothes in the wash, but she knows that when she returns from all that he will have already ruined another shirt and another pair of sheets.

When it starts to dry he moves, a rough grunt as he struggles to sit up, peeling away the sheets with a hiss of air through his teeth. She doesn't know why put she pushes him back down by light butterfly pressure upon his shoulders and he opens his mouth to say something.

"I've got it Peter," she whispers in one quick breath. Her words are soft and warm, full of the emotions he swears are bleeding out of him right in front of her because he's just feeling cold again. She lifts his shirt and heads to the bathroom coming out with a wet towel. She perches herself on the side of his bed like a blue jay on a window and in a bitterly sweet motion she cleans his oozing wounded stomach.

"Olivia," he says when he notices that she will not look at him. Her whole body stiffens and shakes, the slight tremble of her cascading blonde hair just slightly noticeable and Peter reaches for her, reaches to touch her cheek. And she reacts violently.

She shakes her head away from his hand, her fingers leave his skin as if she were almost in a trance that allowed her to touch him and she feels her whole body jolt with electricity. She will not allow him to touch her, not now, not ever. She finishes dabbing his wound clean and stands. She is shattering, she is so close to it and she will not let him do it. He opens his mouth again but she flees.

The only sound left is the reverb of the shut door.

* * *

Olivia is a bomb

A perfect and pleasantly simple time bomb in a box wrapped with steel wrapping paper and tied shut with diamond ribbon, resoundingly beautiful and wickedly strong. Inside she is a pool of unstable and volatile chemicals, sloshing around like a bucket too full of water, waiting to burn and spark the awaiting powder below. And if that weren't enough her heart is molded from C4, packed and ready to explode with just the right trigger wire.

That wire is held (and pulled) by Peter.

She wanders around the house because she pretty much lives there and she feels the pull on the wire, the explosive inside her itching to be lit and released in an inferno that consumes her insides. She'll feel that tug if she wanders to far into an area, she feel it when she stares at family pictures of a son that isn't him and she feels it every time she leaves the house. Peter is still far to weak to be allowed out of his bed and yet she will not see him, just like before. This time it is not anger or shame that stops her, but fear. She is _afraid_. What if, _what if_ he no longer wants her?

She has not gained any weight. She still loses the pounds and it isn't until she stands in _his_ bathroom looking at her self in _his_ mirror that she really _sees_ how skinny she is. She traces her ribs and counts them as a water droplet drips down from her wet hair, dipping in and then rising back out each time it comes down her skin. It crosses her front and curves over her hip in the same motion a wave makes. She watches for another one, only to see that this water droplet is different. Filled with salt, the path is traced from her face down her thin neck and straight down the middle of her breastplate, an abnormally parallel line that runs down the middle of her skin perfectly.

Silently she climbs into Peter's waiting arms, folding her body against his chest. He knew she would come to him.

* * *

She felt strangely excited, a bubbly boiling giddy pot of melting goo in her stomach that leaves her on a strange high. She feels like a teenager with a molten core each time he is around, each time he limps into the kitchen or living room or wherever she happens to be at that time. She loves to feel his eyes against her skin whenever he thinks she doesn't know it, and she secretly smiles behind his back. She doesn't know it yet, but there is always an impending doom over the horizon. But for her it hasn't show its ugly head.

"Olivia?" Peters voice draws her from staring at the stitches on his should that have begun to ooze. Her eyes flick up and meet his, two pools of pleasantly green seas and she gives him a shy grin and shakes her head.

"You're bleeding again."

She feels brave and brings her hand up to touch his shoulder, the pressure making him hiss through his teeth but she holds it there, letting the feeling of his blood seep onto her velvet fingertips. He brings his hand up to cup her face and right there, the look on his face, that is the warning sign that everything will spiral away again. The sign is nestled between the furrow lines of his brow, written in his confused gaze and it reads _warning!_

"Olivia, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

* * *

The glass that separates them could not separate the seeping and bleeding coolness that is invading the observation deck. He looks so calm and composed outside and she knows, _knows_ that is not the case. Or at least she wants to _believe_ that is the case. It frightens her, his cool body posture, the way his arms rest on the table and the agent opposite him is touching the photos and showing him. Peter doesn't _flinch_ and her brow furrows because she is so _confused._ Who is this man?

"Can you tell me, Mr. Bishop, your relationship with Mr. Herring?"

"I-" he starts and inhales "I don't know him."

"You have no relationship with him?"

"No."

"Where did you meet him?"

"I just found him," Peter says and Olivia is holding her breath. She has never heard this story before. She wants to know.

"Why did you kill him?"

There was a silence and she watches and Peter just stares at the man. He looks toward the observation window and she shivers under his gaze.

"Because I could."

* * *

"Why did you lie to them?"

She is fumingly angry but her voice is a whisper. She is a sweet contradiction, her body pressed tightly against his as she whispers venomous words into his ear. She makes no attempt to untangle from him. She has found that the pain is equal whether her face is pressed to his bare chest or if it is pressed to the pillow of her bed. His fingers are soothing over her silken hair and her hands are wrapped around his waist like he is a giant teddy bear.

I can't tell you the truth," he murmured into her hair and she feels the sting in her eyes.

"Why?"

"Sometimes it's better this way," he responds, but instantly regrets it. She freezes at his words, the tears now hot and invading her eyelashes, threatening to tickle his flesh.

"When?"

"Now, sweetheart," he murmurs as he feels her white hot tears burn his flesh, "The truth will only just break us more."

That was the truth.

* * *

and reviews? comments? ideas? crictism? love?


	7. Chapter 7

**can i first just say that THIS was the HARDEST chapter to write. to get inside the head of a massive dynamic worker is INSANE. anyway, the second thing i want to say is thank you everyon who sticks with the story. it means alot to me, and even though we aren't in an angsty place in the show, i feel this story is still true to the show in a way.**

**M, most definitely. **

**I only own typos.**

* * *

He didn't sleep again tonight.

He is dressed in only his boxers as he stares at himself in the mirror, with wide heavy brown eyes. The sink is running, steaming up the tiny brick bathroom as his fingers grip the edges of the sink. Every time he closes his eyes he sees _things. _There are _horrible_ things, dismembered bodies, rotten skins, contorted people with faces _frozen _in pain. He dips his hands under the hot water and splashes up onto his face, trying to shake the horrible nightmares that awaiting him. He is a scientist for _fuck's_ sake, he shouldn't _have _nightmares, but he does and they will remain.

Two warm arms have wrapped around his waist, bare skin on bare skin, and he looks up to see that Sally has wrapped her arms around his waist and is nuzzling his back with her warm face. Her curly black hair is sticking up and out from her recently sleeping and he smiles, spinning around so he faced her. Her pretty olive skin face smiled up at him.

"Can't sleep?" she asks after he's kissed her lightly on the lips. He shakes his head.

"I'm coming back," he answers, "I was just using the bathroom."

She smiles and believes his lie, before turning around and taking his hand in hers, dragging him to the bedroom. He smiled and combed his fingers through her hair before lying down next to her again. The nightmares will come again and so he pretends to sleep because he can't actually do so.

So he will pretend again.

* * *

The tiny blonde agent looks even smaller today.

He contemplates her weakened state as she attempts to drag the dark haired man into the laboratory room. Her bony body is pale and the skin that hangs just barely on is dull and flat, lacking any warmth at all. Has she even eaten today? She lugs the large man into the room and sets him down on the table. Pulling away she reveals that not only she, but he as well are covered in gooey blood. The red substance is _everywhere_ and he knows now is not the time to gag. She looks to him, big round pleading eyes.

"Can you fix him?"

His brow puzzles for a moment, but she sucks a lip into her mouth and looks just about ready to _cry_ and he turns to the dark haired agent.

"Mr. Bishop," he says, "I'm going to have to remove this, are you okay with that?"

"You aren't gay Brandon now, are you?" he jokes in a tired fashion. He tightens his lips and gives a grim smile before removing Peter's shirt to examine the wound.

"It won't stop bleeding," Olivia says emotionlessly. He turns his head to see her crumpled on the ground, her own skin stained red as red can be, and it is smeared on her face in a gory fashion.

He turns back to see that Peter has slumped backwards and has lost consciousness.

* * *

New York is sunny today.

People bustle in and out of the coffee shop that he is in, standing in line for a coffee, and they are completely oblivious to the fate that is around them. He has seen the calculations, he knows _exactly_ just how much time is _left_ before the world unravels into nothingness. When he reaches the front of the line he orders a small coffee, black and takes it that way, seating himself in the window of the store to watch the world go by.

He knows exactly what it's like on the other side, he figures, because here is close to destruction as well. He figures they are a bit ahead of them, mainly from Bell's files and Walter's ramblings, and so blue skies are rare. He figures there is a lack of oxygen do some chemical he doesn't know exists and that the world is slowly falling apart, each city being slowly swallow whole by large sections of amber because they don't know how to stop the rips from happening.

His hands are shaking as he finishes his coffee, and a pretty young woman with short blonde hair notices and smiles at him.

"You all right?" she asks, giving him a smile.

"Fine," he answers, straightening his back, "It's been a long day."

The woman nods and ducks her head before leaving through the door. The wind has picked up but people seem to ignore it. Brandon knows it will only be a few more months until the wind exists no longer.

But it blows around loose hair, for now.

* * *

He has accidently walked in on something he shouldn't.

Olivia is with Peter, and by with he means _with_, in the middle of the hospital lab, legs spread wide around his hips and gripping him. Of course they are still _dressed_ but she's missing her shirt and bra and he can just tell that Peter's fingers have wandered far down between them. Brandon is unsure what to say, as he _really_ needs the files that are next to Olivia, so he clears his throat and she snaps up, face red and embarrassed. Peter stops moving but does not turn.

"I need my files-"

"Then get them," Peter growls to him and Brandon scrambles past him grabbing the files. Peter has not moved from is stance and Olivia is clinging to him, trying to cover her body and melt into him. He scrambles for the folders and clutches them quickly, his retreating form faster than lightning as he shuts the door.

Silently he wonders how this could have happened, how a woman like her could let a man like him into her skin, but the pondering leads him to his own thoughts of Sally and before long he worries that Sally will not love him forever. With a shudder he turns away from the lovers behind the door and heads down the hall. Maybe they will be happy together.

But in the back of his mind he knows, they're not.

* * *

"I can't sleep Nina."

He confesses this to her in the full disclosure of her office, his eyes staring out the window into the New York cityscape. Her mouth twists and her eyes blink downward before looking back up at him and staring him down in the eyes.

"How long?"

"Months."

She nods and stands, turning her back to him as she removes the leather cover of her bionic hand before placing it on a seemingly plain white wall. The wall springs to life and out comes a small cabinet in which she reaches inside and pulls out a small bottle. The wall seals itself up again as she places the container on the edge of her desk.

"These should help."

"Are they sleeping pills?

"Not exactly," she pauses, "They will help you sleep without dreaming."

"Okay," Brandon answers, but she stops him from taking the pills.

"These work off emotions," she starts, "You must be very careful. They can eventually make you lose all awareness of right and wrong."

He hesitates then, but she lays them in his hand.

"I trust you know how to deal with that."

And she gives him them.

* * *

"You coming Brandon?"

Sally calls to him from the bedroom and he smiles to himself briefly, the grin not reaching his eyes.

"Be right there."

He holds the bottle in his hand, a pill in his palm. It is begging him to take it, the little powder white form just _aching_ to be swallowed. This week was particularly gruesome, from the case that the FBI brought in about melting faces, to the wound on Peter Bishop that just _wont_ heal, to the private project Walter has him working on, Brandon is left with nightmares about faces falling off inter dimensional clones of Peter Bishop. He shivers at the memories, but stares at the pill.

Would it really change him if he took only one? Would he suddenly become a sociopath, unable to feel, to care, to _love?_ Or would he sleep without worry for once, without panic and waking in a cold sweat. Nina had told him that _maybe_ he would become a sociopath. It was not garanteed. That assured him as he reached for the glance of water and took a sip, slipping the pill into his mouth and swallowing it. It would only be for this night, right?

Brandon would never become an addict, right?

* * *

reviews? :D


	8. Chapter 8

**so word is throwing a hissy fit on my computer and it's not opening, so i wrote the entire story on the document uploader. so please forgive my more than normal typos and spelling errors, i'll try to keep them to a minimum.**

This is for Kaslyna, who demands smut.

I own ALL TYPOS. :)

* * *

He was wicked with his hands.

Actually he was wicked with his tongue and mouth and every other part of his sculpted body, she figures, as he works his fingers through her hair and across her shoulders and down her tiny frame to rest on her hips. His tongue is somewhere deep inside her mouth but she can't quite focus on where because he is untucking and buttoning her shirt all at the same time with his hands. Olivia can't quite figure out what she wants next from him, for him to stop or to keep going. But she also can't think clearly, because he is currently everywhere and no where all at the same time and she just wants more _more more._

_She figures he needs this, by the way he tugs at her nipple with his teeth, and she guesses she needs it just as much by the purr of a moan that courses up from her throat and so she lets him divulge her of her pants and panties, before he lays his back down on his bed and tastes every bit of her on his way south. She is careful not to touch the wounds on his shoulder for the stitches refuse to stay sewn shut and her fingers traced his muscled and tone skin until they too, have reached south and she can feel him pressing into her and she wonders how she could not want this now. She __wants _this.

"Peter."

She says his name for the first time in so so _many_ days and his only response the grind of his hips into her thigh and the flick of his tongue between her legs as she grasps around her for anything to settle herself down from the dangerously high feeling she has. He moves his face away drags his body away and for a moment Olivia thinks that maybe he knows she's not sure she wants this with her mind just yet, but he returns just as naked as she is and she happily takes his warmth over her skin. She's waited too long, _far_ too long, and yet she feels as if she not waited long _enough_.

A dirty thought runs across her mind and she smiles devilishly at it, and Peter sees and she knows he believes its from him. His cockiness twinkles in his eyes and his cock twitches from the surge of pleasure he somehow brings himself. SHe bites his lip playfully and he spreads apart her thighs and seats himself there, one hand on her breast the other between them, guiding himself and she lets him into her with a gasp and an arch of her back, her hands fisting into the sheets and pillows above her head. She can almost hear the chuckle that his heart is letting loose as her body tries so desperately to adjust to his invasion, and he pushes her further into the border of painful pleasure when he brushes her breast with his face. And so with a grunt he starts his movement and Olivia isn't sure how long she will be able to stand his enjoyment, because she is already trembling under him. He pushes her along by capturing her hands in his and dragging them above her head.

And so he is staring her dead in the face when she comes.

* * *

This is the first time for her.

It is the first time she has ever felt _this_ way she clarifies to herself as she stares at herself in the mirror of his bathroom. It's very early in the morning around 3 or so and she is wearing nothing but a t-shirt of his, staring at herself in her eyes. She feels so betrayed, so violated. And its sickening, it's _wrong_ because she loves him, right? But yet here she stands, wanting more than anything to puke and throw up, to scrub her skin clean of his touch because it stings, it aches, it _burns_. What the _FUCK_ is wrong with her? And then she feels it, the wave of nasuea that hits her and she bends her head down to throw up her stomach contents in the sink, her eyes red and teary, the acid burning her throat. She turns the water on and washes whatever was in the vomit away, down the sink before she looks up. She is cold and clammy and so much unlike herself. She thinks now that this cannot happen again.

He is awake and sitting up when she returns from the bathroom, his eyes shining big and eery in the moonlight that streams in from his window. She stands in the doorway and leans against the door, staring back at him, her hair in slick strands around her face.

"We can't do this again. It was a mistake."

She realizes how much of a hypocrite she is as she stands there in his clothing, in his bathroom, in his_ bedroom_ but she squares her body and waits for him to break down or stare angrily at her and accuse her of being cruel and unusual to him. But instead he looks out the window and speaks, to afraid to stare her in the face.

"You're right. You aren't even her anyway."

* * *

He is going to jail today.

It is only a brief amount of time in jail, a short 90 days for the murdering of someone he didn't know, but it is jail nevertheless. Today they haul him away in handcuffs from the lab and he at first he is calm and cool, but once the icy metal hits his wrists, his mind bolts.

"Olivia!" he calls and she appears, worn and broken looking, hair in a mess and eyes tired. "What is going on?"

"You murdered someone," she answers him and its all she could say. The words he asks have a weight to them that she doesn't want to acknowledge. She tried, she has really tried, but she is _tired_ and just _can't_ hold up anymore. She knew he was going to go to jail and with held it from him, partly because she didn't believe it herself and partly because she did not want him to know just how much she knows. Instead he is fighting and now _bleeding_ as they tug at him to pull him away. His shoulder starts to bleed first and it soaks his shirt followed by the gash she knows exists on his stomach. He is fighting to get away, fighting to run to _her_ and she just stands there cold and cruel, watching him being hauled away. She is sick with herself for not reacting, for not being emotional, but she has found that emotions have done nothing but hurt her and she does not want to be hurt.

By the time he reaches the door the front of his white shirt is completely stained red and the blood drops onto the floor.

Once.

Twice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Next chapter. thank you for the reviews, they mean alot. things get uncomfortable here (it's jail, after all).**

**Peter's three months in jail**

**I own typos only.**

* * *

Jail did nothing good for him.

His shoulder was healing, slowly. Within the first month of jail it healed over, a large ugly scar with thick tissue that twisted and knotted in strange and grotesque ways, criss crossing patches of skin mold and melding, making different places of strain and lax. He could feel underneath his prison garb, and when out in the yard, playing basketball, it was the only spot on his chest that never glimmered with sweat. The stark white scar never tanned, lacking pigment and nerves. And slowly, he began to lack pigment and nerve.

He found himself more alone than ever, inside these walls. The hallow cement cinderblocks confined him, restricted him in way he's never been restricted before. A single bunk always on top was his whole home. He kept it impersonal, left no reason for his Macho-something gang banger _fuck buddy _ to come after him. Hidden with him when he slept was his own shank, made of not his flimsy razor buy of the stone chips that fall off a block near the nasty thing called their toilet. He doesn't hide photos, because e resents the woman that put him there. It had been all for her, anyway, and she sent him away.

He didn't want to make friends, he didn't want to make deals. Which was perhaps the reason he was the first to be stabbed in a fight, but the last suspected in the start of it. He was wicked with his mouth, his words and he could mumble anything to any prisoner in any language and start an all out rage in any space. It was his special talent. And while he welcomed the first jab of a flimsy razor-shank, he was easily able to knock the man out with a single blow. He had always liked to fight, anyway.

But he doesn't have a reason to fight anymore.

* * *

He got a visitor about two months into his three month sentence. He'd just been released from the hospital for the _third_ time since his fucking incarceration, due to yet another wonderful jab. He was in bed, staring at the ceiling, breathing through the lolling pain when the warden slammed open the door, his cold hardened brown eyes stared up at him, lying in the bunk.

"You have a visitor."

Who ever it was, he didn't give a _fuck _about them. He wanted to tell the warden to fuck off, to leave, that he didn't give a shit about who ever was calling for his attention, but his feet swung over anyway, jumping down and turning around, placing his arms behind him, to cuff him. Marched, embarrassingly slow down the cell block he felt the weight of his impending visit heavier and heavier on him. Click after click, buzzer after buzzer he was led to the visiting area and sat down, chain wrapped around his waist and buckled into the cement block before being un-cuffed and left alone, Olivia Dunham on the other side of the glass phone pressed to her ear.

She looks older, harsher, colder and yet so does he. He picks up the phone and meets her stare, even and cold. She's got her stone hedge up and he can't see around it. So he picks up his as well.

"Livia."

"Peter I'm pregnant."

After a long moment of silence that he took to pretend to process the information, he speaks.

"Well shit."

If possible, her features hardened. There was another few moments to process, minutes ticking by made in silence before she stiffened and threw her head over her shoulder.

"I'm done here," she says in a stern tone and her body shifts and he stands, the chain yanking him back down to sit.

"Olivia wait," he tries out to her, his hand placing firmly on the glass. She turns back to him and sits again, picking up the phone, waiting.

"How far along are you?"

"Seven weeks," she murmurs. Peter nods.

"Are you going to um, going to keep it?"

She shrugs, "I was thinking of it. If I do keep the baby I just wanted to let you know."

Peter nods, unable to say anything to her. He wants to scream out at her that he wants to be a father, but it sounds incredibly ironic sitting behind the glass wall he was now.

"Okay then that's it," she says, trying to find a reason to stay near him, to linger.

"If," Peter chokes, "If you keep the baby, I'd like to be a part of it's life. If you'd let me."

And her stony facade melts, just a moment. There was a swift nod to him before she stood up. The smiles were gone, but he felt one threaten to spread across his own face. Even though he was battered, broken, beaten, she came to him. Was she as weak as he was? Or was she drunk to him, just like he was to her. That kind of power could bring a man immense pleasure, and it was all his.

But pleasure was the farthest thing from his mind.

* * *

His 3 months was up.

It was just a few days before his release date when he was stabbed severely in his side. Stabbed by his own shank, made of hard stone he was bleeding for hours on the floor before anyone found him. This all came though, after he refused to be some fuck toy for his cellmate's gang leader.

He had been lucky, survived three months without being bullied into bending over and having his ass violated by some fucker who hadn't had _it_ in a long time. But his luck changed just 5 days before release.

He wasn't going to say life hadn't been rough behind bars, that he hadn't had moments where he'd woken up with a raging hard on because of some Olivia fantasy that invaded his dreams. And he wasn't going to lie and say that he hasn't been almost jumped in the shower because he's felt a wandering hand or two, sliding down his back or on his shoulders, and he's started the fights against them, slamming up the creeps in the showers, naked and slimy and soapy and all, and punching the shit out of them. And he wasn't going to lie about the creeps that cat called and whistled at him in the yard while he worked out on the equipment or played on the skins team in basketball.

But he was not prepared to be over taken in his own cell, by his cell mate the gang banger and shoved against the wall before striking out and striking back. He fought back, but was out numbered when two other men entered. It was then he knew what was happening. He shoved off his cell mate and stood up, his height powering over the pair of two men. Larger somalian men stood at the cell door, guarding.

"So this is how it's going to be then," he had said, "Not even going to wine and dine me first?"

"Maybe after wards pretty boy," had said the man that was clearly the leader of whatever gang his dip-shit cell mate was in. "Now let's not make this difficult for you."

"You're not really my type," he had responded, shifting uncomfortably, "But thanks anyway."

"Funny, you're exactly mine."

He had been jumped again, face smashed by fists as he flailed his arms around helplessly, trying to find anything to grab on the shorter man. He wasn't going down without a fight. And fight he had, fought until he found himself sprawled on his back, face puffy and smaller man sitting on him, pounding away. When he had stopped struggling the man scooted up onto Peter's chest, pulling out his hideously (and embarrassingly) small dick.

"Open it," the man hissed and Peter had rolled his head to the side. Another fist to the jaw and Peter's mouth fell open in pain, the man's chance to slip in. Slightly out of respect and disgust, he did not take a bite out of the latino cock and squeezed his eyes shut, feeling more humiliated than ever before. Just when the man's mouth fucking felt like it was going to kill him he pulled away.

"Turn over," he had commanded, and Peter doesn't want to remember the rest because it was not only painful but humiliating and he had to go through it all without the decency of privacy. It was, however, allowed the luck of only being ass raped by a single man rather than many. He wasn't afforded the luxury, however of being to able to walk away from it. He was stabbed, in the lung and there he lay, pants around his feet on the cold floor, bleeding.

Five days alter he left prison. He came in broken and wounded and he left the same way.

Broken.

Wounded.

* * *

all right, how was that? harsh, yeah i know, but jails pretty bad (this is extreme, okay, this is not always the case, i know that) but you can image Peter's mouth getting him in alot of trouble. oh and the baby? sadness.


	10. Chapter 10

**i own nothing but the typos.**

**thank you for the reviews, i know that chapter was hard to swallow. anyway, i'm onto the next chapter, because i thought i needed to keep writing (and it wouldn't leave me alone!) **

**Bad things happen to Olivia**

**M.**

* * *

She's been living with him since Peter's incarceration.

Sometimes he'll catch her out of the corner of his eye, running down the hall to the bathroom or going to lounge around in the living area. He made be slightly insane, but he knows when someone is hurting, and she is. He would offer her some sort of concoction of a drug cocktail because God knows she needs it, but instead he keeps it to himself. Insanity may make him insane, but he was still far to brilliant for the safety of human kind.

She's supposed to be staying in the guest bedroom, after she had so graciously volunteered to watch him for the 3 months Peter was going to be gone for, but he knew otherwise. He had seen her around the house with Peter, half dressed and padding around barefoot and now, with him gone, he could hear her wake up in the middle of the night and sneak into Peter's room, the door shutting with a gentle click.

She cooks him breakfast sometimes, when he's kept her up all night and he randomly clocks out at 2:33 or 5:45 in the morning or whatever time he does. She hasn't slept and he knows it, pities that he has to be cared for, but his expression changes when he hears the sizzle of bacon in the pan and he dances around happily in his wool socks behind her. She turns and frowns before turning back to the pan.

"Walter, put some pants on."

* * *

He knows she's pregnant.

He's a scientist after all, with a unique ability of noticing the unseen. He sees the moment her hips shift, her walk becomes more of an amble and the way the pull of her shirt is no longer across her breasts, but down over her hips. She's very thin, about 30 pounds or so underweight and so the tiniest of bumps (even at 7 weeks) is visible. So he brings it up to her in the lab on day as he munches away on a red vine, the twists rolling between his teeth.

"Agent Dunham," he says to catch her attention, as he does, her eyes shooting up.

"Yes Walter?" she says calmly, although she is irritated and agitated.

"You should tell Peter," he says nonchalantly, as if he were supposed to know what he was referring to. Olivia's hands faltered on the file.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're pregnant Agent Dunham."

Astrid lifts her head and turns to Olivia whose expression is now stony and smooth, unfaltering. For a moment she leaves it that way, before she gives a half grin.

"What are you talking about Walter?" she repeats, but then her tell is exposed, her eyes drift down over her own body and she bites her lip, fingers rolling over the pages in the folder. Walter smiles and turns his head away from her.

"I think you should inform my son he is going to be a father," he says again, more sternly before turning his back to her and working away again.

For some reason pregnant women have always reminded him of rain. And so when she slams the door as she leaves in a flurry, he can't help but hum Judy Garland's version of "Singing in the Rain"

* * *

He's been home for a week now and she's moved out.

He doesn't know what she said to him in prison or what he said to her, but it's obviously weighing on both their minds because Peter isn't sleeping. He mulls around the house and neighborhood in the darkest parts of the night, full dressed in brooding black colors. He wonders if maybe he should buy Peter a shirt or jacket or something in a color other than black because he's sure he's woken thinking Peter was an intruder in the room but he can't quite remember that or not. It doesn't matter anyway, because eventually they would become a family.

At least he thought so.

It was an ear piercing, blood curdling, heart breaking shriek that shattered the unnaturally heavy silence in the lab one day. Walter turned, startled on such a horrible sound to find that the blonde agent had crumpled to the ground, files scattered around, one hand clutching her stomach, the other between her legs. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was happening by the sound of her cries, sweat pouring from her brow, tears staining her cheeks.

She was miscarrying.

"Walter, do SOMETHING!" screams Peter, and he was at her side before Walter could blink. Astrid was already on the phone to 911. Olivia's crying out in pain, her shrieks hurting his ears and he can't think, can't focus, can't function.

"PETER!" she screams, drawing out the 'r' on his name as her fingers cling to his tricep. Peter looks over at Walter, shucking out of his shirt.

"Walter," he screams and Walter moves towards them on the floor taking hold of the shirt under Olivia's head as Peter moves to her legs, twisting her to lie flat. She screams louder, hips thrusting upwards, back arching.

"The ambulance is on its way," Astrid calls and Peter's at the fly of her pants, unhooking them.

"Sweetheart we've got to get these off now," he murmurs and she lets him pull them down, the blood smearing her cream skin as it does so. Walter's watching his son, watching as his son cares for the woman, thinking that he raised the kidnapped boy so well. Peter bends her knees, pulling at her underwear and yanks them off.

"Oh shit," Peter murmurs and Walter looks over her head. He goes to move to see, but Olivia's hand stops him, a private plea to please not see her this way. He sits back on his heels and holds her head in his hands. She screams again and Peter's eyes widen as blood rushes the concrete floor.

"Astrid!" Peter cries out and Astrid sinks between her legs and her eyes freeze. What could it possibly be?

"Walter," Astrid asks, her eyes kind and pleading, "Walter will you please go get a cloth?"

Walter nods jerkingly and stands, rifling through the cabinets, trying to find something to absorb the blood.

"Olivia, you're having false contractions, you've got to try and stop your body."

"I'm not doing this on purpose!" she screams and Walter finds a towel tucked away behind a jar. He rushes back, just as the EMT's enter the room.

"Thank God," Peter says, "She's miscarrying."

"Step back ma'am, sir," the men say, gently but with force pushing the three of them away. Peter looks at Olivia as the men work.

"We've got to get her to the hospital now, her body is rejecting her child."

Olivia's eyes widen and she reaches for Peter. He grabs her hand.

"Don't leave me," she whispers and he nods. A stretcher rolls in and they lift her carefully onto it, a few screams echoing through the Kresege building. They rush her away and Peter goes with her.

Reality hits Walter as they leave, blood staining the floor and the lab echoing with silent screams.

_Her body is rejecting his grandson_.

* * *

sooooo what did you think? reviews are good. critique is great. tell me i want to hear wht you liked/disliked.


	11. Chapter 11

**THank you for the reviews! they mean alot! Here is a little bit of relief from all that pain, in the form of Astrid's POV. forgive me for the flowers meanings, i tried to find what each meant :)**

**I own the typos.**

**Because Astrid cares.**

* * *

Flowers.

There are flowers for Get Well's, pink little roses and stargazer lilies, flowers that symbolize joy and happiness and life. There are also the congrats on the new baby flowers, carnations daffodils and daisies, all meaning a celebration of new life. White flowers are for a death of a sickly patient, with dragon snaps and white lilies and small cards that say "I'm sorry". And while all these flowers litter the hospital gift shop, spilling out into the hallway, no one them were helping her now.

She did not know what to pick.

How do you express to a work mate and a friend something you can't say in words? How do you tell someone that you're sorry for their loss when you can't look at them? It doesn't make it easy that she doesn't look at anything but the hem of the blue hospital blanket she lays under. Her pulse is thready, thin and while she's awake and alive she isn't responding to people. She flinches and moves away and Astrid can't stand to see her in so much pain.

She knows what it's like, the suffering. Astrid remembers well, the day her mother lost her son-Astrid's younger brother. And while she was in pain, it was nothing like Olivia's heart stopping screams in the lab or the way her knuckles burst through her skin as she clutched her palms in obvious pain. Astrid was only eight at the time and so she can't remember what flowers her father brought her mother, but she can remember the way her mother flinched at her fathers touch, as if she were purposely rejecting the child. It took months for her family to be whole again, years before the son came along, and her mother was a strong woman. Olivia was strong, oh so strong, but she was weak at the moment, broken. Olivia's fragile like glass, glass that dips and curves, molded only by the intense heat of fire, sorched.

There was a bouquet of flowers that caught her eye. It wasn't the blossoming centers of the white lilies that caught her eye or the little baby's breath, but the brilliant beautiful sunflower in the middle, golden petals spread wide and welcoming, the black center stretching upward towards her. Two others had bloomed as well, and one other threatened to bloom. The golden petals reminded Astrid of Olivia's hair, the gold spreading out like the halo that wraps Olivia's head.

She bought the flowers.

* * *

"Olivia you've got to take it."

Peter's trying to coax Olivia into taking the pills that sit on her desk. One is an anti depressant, one a pain killer and the other is something that Astrid's never heard of and she's not sure what it does. Her flowers are off to the side, the only ones in the room, and are next to Peter's clothes, wadded up and wrinkled. He hasn't left her side yet and while he sits and sulks in the dark corner, at least he's there. But now he's frustrated that she won't take her pills and she won't look him in the eye now.

Astrid approaches him and places a hand on his shoulder and he sees that she wants the room. In defeat he turns, grabs his jacket and leaves, shutting the door silently. Astrid perches herself next to Olivia and looks at her looking at the pills. She turns her head and stares from out the window.

There's a bitter cold wind outside and the frost is making cute little crystals on the windows, creating perfect circles on the pane of cold and winter. Astrid stares at them as they crystalize and frost over clouding up. She turns back to Olivia, who stares at her as she was staring out the window. Astrid offers a small smile.

"I know what you're thinking," Olivia whispers, "I wouldn't have been a good mother anyway."

"Oliv-" she says and then breathes out, "You are going to be a great mother some day."

"I won't be a mother."

"You will. I know it."

* * *

"It's Eric, call me when you can."

The message machine beeps off and she sinks into the couch, her scarf draping over the arm chair by the television as she lets her head fall back and stare at the cracks in her apartments ceiling. She sure as hell does not get paid enough to do what she does. She's given up her social life, her home life, everything to care for an unstable man, an insane scientist and a crumbling FBI agent. It's a wonder why Eric even calls her any more.

She was about to pick up the phone when she hears a knock at the door. It's probably Walter, or the neighbor bringing Walter over and so she prepares herself by grabbing her scarf again. She pulls the door open and is surprised to see how stand there.

Eric.

His gentle brown eyes are warm and kind and he smiles at her, hands bundled up in the pockets. She looks at him as if she's never seen him before, his tan military jacket hitting perfectly at his waist wear his belt tucks his shirt into his cargo pants. Astrid's eyes transfer from him to her scarf still in her outstretched arms. She looks back up at him.

"Going somewhere?"

She smiles and shakes her head, putting the scarf down behind the door.

"No," she says, "Not anymore."

And she pulls back the door and let hims in. She's sacrificed almost everything for her job, and while she does it because she loves her strange family, she won't sacrifice her own joy.

At least not tonight.

* * *

what'd you think? a little soothing for the moment? Good, because it's going to get bumpy from here out. :)


	12. Chapter 12

**extra long chapter for extra loving fans! thank you for the reviews! We're back to M because it, well it's M. **

**I own typos only.**

**M M M M M M M M M M M -M? yes, for sMut. (hence the M)**

* * *

Everyone expected her to be weak when she left the hospital. She did the exact opposite.

Sort of.

From the moment she was released, she demands. It's a silent demand, because she lacks words to speak. So she demands silently for a ride home, a ride to her house. Her eyes are set, harsh and determined as she demands silently for a ride to her apartment. And while Peter watches her, communicating silently with his own eyes that he wants to care for her, she will not let him in. Her face turns in a silent plead that she will not discuss this, not now. And so she turns away from him, coat in hand.

It feels eerily like the last time he's retrieved her from the hospital, his arms around her suitcase, walking in front of her in a trance like state, leading her to the SUV that he's been assigned in her...absence. He opens the door from her before opening the trunk and placing her luggage in the back. The only thing in her little suitcase is a shirt, the rest were blood stained and burned at the hospital and so it's light as he lifts and shuts the door at the same time before climbing around front and into the drivers seat.

She stares out the window. It's raining, hard, the pounding sound of the rain and the rhythmic thud of the wipers wipe out all traces of rain and all chances of conversation. Not that she'd talk away. She has nothing to say to him, or anyone, anyway. The rain makes things dark, bleak like winter, and she feels it deep down to her aching bones, seeping in and suddenly she's burst into tears.

Peter's swerving and the car shifts and she moves sideways and jolts forward, bracing her hands against the dashboard as he rests on the side. He turns to her, she's in tears and she won't look at him.

"Olivi-"

But she wipes her tears faster than he swerved off the road. She hadn't even known she had broken out in tears.

"I'm fine."

But she's not.

* * *

Her apartment has become a prison, and she is the slave.

She spends day in and day out working on the apartment, cleaning and cleansing then doing it all over again until she's tired. Her body is still to weak to go out for her runs but she sits on the small porch sometimes and stares into the air. It hasn't stopped raining since she's been released from the hospital.

Today it's hailed a bit and she plays with the last of the drops on the deck, rolling the tiny ice ball between her fingers before it falls away and turns to slush on the wood. She's drenched, skin fading from pink to purple. But she doesn't shiver as she sits there in her underwear, she's muted, silent, calculating.

She's lost in her own mind, just thinking. She's so damaged now. Incredibly damaged and that's the problem. She thinks, that perhaps she's not strong enough to go on, that perhaps she's so damaged and broken and she's unfixable. But she doesn't _feel_ broken or unfixable. She doesn't _feel_. What the _fuck _was happening to her?

"Liv?"

There's panic in his voice as he slides open the glass door to the porch. He sees her in the rain and rushes to her, running to her side and lifting her up, swear words falling from his mouth. The moment he's brought her inside she flails around in his grasp, shoving him away.

"What the _fuck_ Olivia?" he nearly screams at her, reaching for a blanket to wrap around her, "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

She doesn't answer, instead she glares at him, pulling the blanket around her skin tighter. She's not shivering from the cold, she is not shivering from fear, she is just shivering because she can, like a shaking little Chiuaua, so fragile and breakable, but stronger than diamond. She stares at Peter, defiant.

"I'm fine."

* * *

It's been close to 4 and half months since she's touched him.

Besides the occasional hand held, cheek brush and forehead kiss, he hasn't touched her once. She guesses it's because she's not ready for anything else, and she isn't, but she would still like to know that he is partly human inside. He's so patient and so kind and it's killing her because he does so. Sometimes she wishes he would be more assertive, to let her know he still wants her, still wants to love her. But he does nothing.

She sips on her glass of whiskey as she sits at the bar alone tonight. Peter doesn't know where she's at and she doesn't care right now. She sets the glass down and the bartender pours her another. She doesn't understand why he didn't follow her here, why he isn't right next to her knocking them back. He cares for her still, right? As she scans the room she has the slight choice between lean and mean looking drummer with neck tattoos and older business man in a pin stripe suit. It'd be all too easy to take one home, to touch her the way she wants Peter to, to love her the way she wants Peter to. But instead she turns her face back to the bar, she'll give it one more shot, one more chance.

If Peter doesn't want her then, she doesn't know what she'll do.

* * *

She notices that his eyes linger two seconds too long on her blouse, another button down unbuttoned, and she takes that as a sign that maybe he still wants her. She's worn her one and only push up, a no surprise black lace bra that Rachel had gotten her from Victoria's Secret once upon a time ago and she's giving him a silent smolder as he stares at her. His lips part and she takes that as a sign that he wants her. She turns, sways her hips and heads for her office, shutting the door behind her.

He enters not two seconds later, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

She's sitting behind the desk and she looks up, her stomach tightening at the glance in his eyes. He leans against the door and stares at her. They don't speak and she stands, unbuttoning her blouse as she goes, revealing skin underneath to his eyes, hungry for the flat expanse that was her stomach. She comes around and leans on her desk.

"Touch me Peter," she commands, "Touch me like I know you want to."

She notes he wastes no time to come up to her, pressing her against the wood of the desk behind her, hips pinned as he wraps his fingers into her hair, pulling her lips to his. She drinks from him as he drinks from her, raw and slightly rough as his tongue invades her mouth and his hands push away the bra on her breasts. Her fingers wrap around the belt buckle on his pants and she's sliding it away as he nips her neck, her body arching into his hands, hair draping down her back. She shakes from pleasure, a moan escapes her lips and suddenly she can't get enough of him.

Her fingers and gripping his sides as her leg wraps around his hips. She's dry humping him right here in her office, unable to get enough of the friction between them. She hears his chuckle as his lips dance over her skin. She panting, hot and heavy already and she's still dressed her pants. Peter senses this and he moves his hands from their attention on her nipples to unbutton her pants and slide them away, her panties going with them. He lifts her in one motion and he yanks her pants completely off before shrugging out of his own shirt and shoving his fingers into her heat.

She lets out a strangled cry and nips his shoulder. He's so rough with her and she loves it, his fingers a pace that is bordering painful. She duels him with her tongue, unable to satisfy her thirst for him. His thumb flickers across her clit and she lets out a beautiful whimper, her own fingers swiftly unbuttoning his pants and pulling his boxers and pants down together.

"Fuck me," she whimpers into his ear, "_Please_ Peter."

He removes his fingers, lips never leaving her skin as he shoves himself inside her. She lets out a loud cry, her body stiffening. Pain ripples through her frame at his entrance and she remember just vaguely that the doctors had told her would be slightly uncomfortable her first time after her miscarriage. Peter freezes, afraid, but she scoots her hips up closer, grinding. She needs this so much.

She's desperate.

* * *

What did you think? Like it? enough smut for you? dark enough? Angsty enough? tell me!

Next up, Peter has an embarrassing secret that he SHOULD tell Olivia?


	13. Chapter 13

**and onto the next. I've had nothing to do for the last few days except update and write, so here is another update. Thank you again for the reviews they mean a lot to me. Keep them coming, please? :)**

* * *

How do you tell someone you care for that you've been raped?

Or actually, how do you tell your girlfriend that you were raped? It's not exactly something you bring up over dinner, that you, a male, have been raped in prison. It's not something he wants to talk about really either, the humiliation. He can't imagine her reaction. Would a woman laugh at him? It's a horrible thought, to be raped and he now he can imagine why women are terrified of men. Men did this to him, men do this to them.

He just can't bring it up.

But every time he sees her, it swallows him whole. The way she smiles at him, her green eyes lighting up with glee, her smile twisting on her mouth and he feels it _eating_ at him. Every time she runs her fingers across his chest he blanches trying desperately to hold down his stomach contents. It's not her, really, its him. And because it's him, he makes himself sick.

He almost told her once as they lay in bed together, arms wrapped around her body, face pressed into the space between her shoulders. He almost let it slip.

"Olivia?"

"Mm?"

"Nothing. You're just so beautiful."

But he didn't say it.

* * *

Sitting at her small table on her back porch he decides its time.

"Olivia?"

She looks up from the paper she's been reading, her long thin legs draped over the side of her chair, her shirt-his actually- bunched up around her hips. She smiles at him and he reaches out for her hand, the one she has so delicately wrapped around her coffee mug. He rests her hand over his.

"Yes Peter?" she asks, waiting. He lets his eyes drift over her arm and for the first time in a long time he feels nervous.

"I have something to tell you," he whispers quietly, "It's important."

She smiles again. "You can tell me anything, you know," she answers.

He inhales and exhales, listening to the roar of his blood through his veins pounding in his ears and looks down at his arms. They're shaking, lightly, and he shakes his head to try and calm down. Olivia's shifted her position and tucked her feet underneath her and now her green eyes are intently focused on his. He almost balks, turning his head away but returns his gaze, heavy and calm all at the same time. He drags his heavy eyes up and down the length of her arm, eyelashes sweeping his cheeks lightly.

"Something happened," he starts, and her face falls and she withdraws her hand until he reaches out to grab it. "It's not about her."

She nods in understanding, although her eyes are still weary.

"While I was in jail-"

"Peter," she says, "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I know I should have been and I was being hateful and spiteful and I was hating myself for getting pregnant-"

"I was raped."

Then suddenly the whole world became incredibly silent and Peter was left to listen to his own breathing. Olivia became still, almost unnaturally still and Peter watched her process. Her eyes never flickered, her mouth-stone still, and her fingers remained lax, her body un-twitching. It felt like a lifetime before she moved, before the whole world moved again. And it wasn't exactly a good kind of move. She stiffened and pulled back her hand, eyes staring directly into his.

"I don't understand," she opts to say and he wants to wring her neck because she understands _exactly_ what he was saying.

"I was held down and raped, _Olivia_," he growls at her, lips turning up in a snarl. She has to understand, she has to _know_. Her green eyes are misty, watery and she turns her head away, a few tears shaking lose by accident. She wipes them stubbornly away and she whispers, her voice as light as the breeze.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

They don't talk about it. But there really is nothing to talk about.

She won't tell him how she feels about her miscarriage and he doesn't ask. He won't tell her anything about how he feels being rapes and she doesn't ask. It's a mutual don't ask agreement that's slowly eating them away, flesh by piece of flesh. It's rubbing them raw, red and violent colored-cold cold _cold_ skin turning colors that are warm. But inside it's still cold. They are two festering chest wounds, sucking in oxygen and letting out pus in oozing slow motions. And they do it to themselves.

Peter watches her move, watches the pain she suffers as she walks around the lab. And while _they_ may not see it in the lab, her stride tall, powerful and in charge, Peter knows that she falters in step when the dark creeps over and the cold seeps in. He sees she's hurting and he won't do anything about it. Because he's hurting too and she won't relieve him.

Stubborn as _fuck_.

But that stubbornness makes them suitable, a pair of dancing glass tigers, bodies outstretched and just so beautifully dangerous and poised that it _hurts_. But's it a good kind of hurt. It will always be a good kind of hurt. Like her dagger eyes and the way they've caught him staring at her. He's never been one to turn away from the pierce, the gaze that is so beautiful it's painful and he enjoys it as he holds it, perfectly balanced between his own. Her lips quirk up in a sideways smile and she turns her head away. Perhaps tonight will be a good night. Perhaps he will get lucky. It's the days like these where her smile means he will be sweaty and sticky and wonderfully content. It's perfect until he turns his head to stare at the slits of the lab windows and frowns.

It's cold and dark outside. Which, in turns means, that she will step into the cold and suddenly she will be in a world of hurt. Behind the lights, when shadows creep in she limps, she's tired, breaking and so wonderfully beautiful that it makes him smile. Because he knows, he _knows_ that when the light stop shining on him, he's just as tired, limping and breaking as she is.

And it's perfect. Until it's not.

* * *

Soo, what do you think? love it? hate it? tell me your thoughts :)


	14. Chapter 14

**this is a character who is interesting, full of mystery. I like that about writing her. Thank you everyone for the last chapter's reviews, they always make my heart swell :)**

**I own the typos only.**

* * *

No one understands what it's like to be her.

She doesn't really give anyone the _chance_ really, actually, she likes her privacy. Which is perfectly fine for her, because she has more skeletons in her closet than Hannibal Lector has ever seen. She likes her glass corner office because she can look out and _no one_ can look in. She likes it that way.

Today she leaves early. It's the third Thursday of the month and her calendar is always clear. No ones questions why, she's boss after all. No one calls her. If they did, she wouldn't answer, anyway. She gets in her own car from her home (not a chauffeur) and drives it the one place every time.

It's way out in the back woods of anywhere relative to _anything_, but that is exactly why she picked it. The entrance is a long, narrow drive that has been taken good care of (from mostly massive dynamic funds, her salary), with trim and proper bushes and tall, lush trees. The drive winds, up and up until it reveals a home way out on the edge of the sea, high on a cliff. The gorgeous victorian mansion looks like a castle on the cliff, and she thinks it's a perfect place to keep all her skeletons in.

"Ms. Sharp," the attendee says as she enters. Her white nurse outfit is crisp and proper with just a perfect touch of down to earth, homey hospitality and her smile is not blanched white like her company she's worked hard to build up. She smiles back at the woman.

"Good afternoon Karla," she says as she approaches the wood counter.

"She's been waiting for your visit," the woman says with a grin, "She's very excited to see you."

"Where is she?"

"The porch. I'll take you there."

Nina smiles and the woman moves around the side, her white nurse shoes touching the floor in rhythmic beats that are in opposite time than her own. The off white walls of the halls gave the facility less of a retirement home feeling and more of a house far back in time, from the 80's. As she turns the hall, the nurse slides open the glass door to the back porch and steps up.

"Nina?" she says, "Someone here to see you."

The woman moves aside and Nina slides out. There she sits, slumped back in a wooden chair, head down, hands folded in her lap. It's a long and nasty story to how they both got _here_, but the truth is, that there is really more than _one _of _anything_. The woman slides back out the door and shuts it, leaving Nina and Nina by themselves.

It's really quite _complicated_, this predicament that the two of them are in. And actually it's quite _unfair_ for her. Nina's not really from this world, and while she feels _partially _responsible for the reason this woman, this _her_ is _here,_ she knows it's not at all her fault.

She can blame William Bell.

* * *

It happened so many years ago.

She had just lost him, her new husband, to a horrible and twisted fiery car crash when he appeared to her. She swore he was a ghost, the first time he saw her. He appeared, dressed as if he were from a strange plane of time, which she _knew_ existed thanks to her lover.

He asked her to come with him, to cross worlds to replace the broken shell of herself over here. Because where he was killed in a car crash here, she was left a shell _there_. And so to compensate with both their losses, they came to here.

And _everything_ was different.

She adapted to black clothes though, because it was their own ironic way of mourning. His turtle neck was _her_ favorite and her black clothes was _his_ favorite. It was an ironic twist that suited them both, the strange...relationship (if it was called that) that the two of them had. And for what is was worth, she enjoyed it.

But then it changed.

Somehow he got himself stuck over there, just as she realized she may actually have fallen in love with this version of her lover. The differences between the two were subtle but there, and while she liked to compare them and he liked to hear her "notes" as he called them, she was beginning to love this man more and more. So it only hurt so horrifically painfully when he sent her a message saying he would not be returning. She would go on without him. The _two_ of them would go on without him. It all but broke her heart.

It was a good thing there was another heart here that he wouldn't break.

* * *

Nina knows Olivia's pain.

She understands it.

She also understands Peter's pain as well. She knows how it feels to be _almost_ in balance with the world, but just not _quite_. She knows how everything is so similar but not _quite_. She understands his confusion, to be to a world that is familiar and then to return here.

But she also understand Olivia's pain. Like Olivia, she too is feeling _second_ to a hollow shell. It was that way with William. She was there to fill the void that _his_ Nina left, and for a long time that was all it felt like. So she understands that Olivia is still unsettle. After all , she too felt inferior. But Olivia will wait it out, suffer it for a while before she realizes that there is no second place left for her to be in. Alternate Olivia is gone, and Olivia is here.

Even though their relationship reflects the one Nina and William shared many years ago, they are very different. Nina and Olivia are _very_ much the same, despite her most _obvious_ protests, where thy bottled up until it can no longer be held in. Peter however, is much different than William, and where William would just leave it alone, Peter found it better to ask _why_, to see if he can promote a _response_ from anyone. And that would be all right.

For now, anyway.


	15. Chapter 15

**yayyy new chapter. I love this story, I really do. I can take it anywhere and bounce it off anything and you guys will love it :) I love you guys for it. All your reviews mean so much to me. I know it's gotten weird with the Nina and Brandon parts but I had fun including them in and they were fun to reread. BUT as always we get back to our tragic love story with Olivia! **

**I own only the typos.**

* * *

There is a hole in the lab. A literal hole, not a figurative one, right there in the center of the floor, gaping and huge, just staring up at her. It stretches from the furtherest gurney on the right to the base of the stairs, awaiting it's prey to swallow as they unsuspectingly bound down the stairs in a cheery mood. But lucky Olivia is receptive or she would have fallen victim to the monster of the lab.

Walter is excited, bouncing around the edges at a speed she's never seen, and she's had to save him from falling in twice, pulling the back of his tan sweater and grabbing a hold of the railing to balance. Peter has yet to show up but it does not worry her, his night was a rough one. With a devious grin tucked away in her mind she scolds Walter on his carelessness _again_ and turns back to carefully pick her way around the edge. Some time ago the dropped a coin down there, and have yet to here it clatter to a stop.

Where it came from, she has no idea. Why it was there, she has no idea. All she does know is it is here, deep and rutted in the lab and she can't but think it's a metaphor for her life at the moment. There is a deep hole in her where information falls and her reactions and emotions have fallen in. She can feel it, sucking away her feelings but she can't rid herself of it. She fears that she too, is in danger of falling in and becoming lost forever. And while she wants Peter to be the one that is stopping her now from teetering over the edge, she almost feels him pushing her in, inching her to ledge that will drive her to madness.

But she refuses to think about that now.

Peter comes in an hour late, closing the door and instantly scanning the room for her and stepping down the stairs without thinking. Olivia turns and sees him just in time, screaming for him to stop, for him to look down. He stops just in time, kicking a piece of rubble into the space. He looks down, eyes wide and curious.

"There is a hole in the lab," he says, obvious stated and Olivia wants to roll her eyes and smile at him. Instead she nods at him as he shuffles around the side. He comes to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders and leans in a kisses her. She loves this happiness, this attention from him, and while she loves the way to feels to be pressed up next to him, she can't help the sneaking suspicion that it is too soon about to end.

But she'll ignore that feeling for now.

* * *

Peter has valiantly volunteered to go down the hole. He's already strapping himself into the gear that Broyles has brought and is tugging on the line that is attached to the steel beam of the roof. Olivia is staring daggers in his side, angry and red and piercing his skin. He's good at hiding his flinches, so only Olivia notices that he's affected by her spikes. he's fumbling with the last clip, refusing to meet her eyes. Broyles is next to him, briefing him and Walter is checking his vitals _again_.

Olivia has told him her feelings about what he's doing. She'd much rather be the one climbing down the dark hole than watching him do it. But he will have none of it. He pushes her away when she tells him no, and she's about ready to kill him to make sue he doesn't go. But he will not get near her. It's funny, these two, acting like four year olds in an adult situation, and while it's cutesy and funny to those like Astrid, who have to watch, Olivia's annoyance is ricocheting off the space like a bullet, and it's continuously piercing through Peter's skin.

He finally looks at her, and all that hate and anger she's been sending him stops and drops off like the ledge itself, crumbling around and becoming a puddle at her feet. He's staring so openly at her and she can read everything in his baby blues, liquid and swirling. He's begging for her approval like he can't live without it, like it's air. She's never seen him so desperate for her to agree. He's holding her gaze and she's watching as his fingers are fumbling with the last of the harness clips. Carefully she stands up and comes over to him. He's watching her every move like a frightened dove, and she is a lion, coming over to see him. She smoothes her fingers across his chest and stares at him.

"Be careful, okay?" she murmurs lowly to him. He gives her a nervous chuckle and nods, though his eyes are swimming with fear.

"I always am."

* * *

"Peter?"

"Yes, Walter."

Peter calls up from deep in the hole, his voice silent from the space, but drifting up in the microphone attached to his head. Olivia is on her hands and knees leaning over the edge, looking for the light that is attached to his helmet. But she sees nothing. He is very deep in and her heart is flutter. The fear of the unknown is taking over her skin and she feels it crawling underneath. Her fingers grip the edge of hole as she leans forward.

"What's down there?" Olivia asks, looking at Walter. It's Peter's voice that answers on the microphone though and she feels the tension ripple through her body as he answers.

"The walls are sticky," he says, "And it's really cold."

Suddenly there's a rumble on the other side of the microphone and Olivia notices that the wire Peter is attached to is swinging around. Walter sees too and the panic that Olivia has felt is now overflowing and spilling into the room.

"Peter! Peter! Peter what's happening?" Walter shouts into the microphone.

"What?" Peter is saying, "What is tha-"

But he's choked off by a deep rumble and the sound of snapping and attacking and Peter's horrible pain-filled scream that drifts up from the dark, deep hole. Olivia panics, something she hasn't done since she was a rookie and she stands, reaching for the rope as it swings back and forth. Suddenly the rope goes slack and pitches towards her as she frantically scrambles for it, reaching, pulling tugging. She's suddenly reverted back to newbie ways, putting herself in harms way. She doesn't know why, or how, but she is.

It's then when something comes roaring out of the hole. And, to Olivia, Walter, Astrid and everyone's horrible surprise, Peter is dangling limp and lifeless from the jowels of the creature. It's scaly and slimy and gross, with two bleeding sockets for eyes and sharp teeth drenched it warm and sticky Peter blood. Olivia is frozen, she can't move, can't speak but can only watch as it swings it's massive head and neck to and fro in the space. Peter's moving like a rag-doll and it's a horrible sight to watch. But she can't look away, she's waiting for him to be ripped in half, two pieces of her lover she'd have to gather and bury. It wouldn't be the first time for her to do so.

Shots fire out into the room. It barely registers as the creature releases Peter and retreats in a flash back into darkness. All Olivia can see is Peter. She reaches him, scrambles onto her knees and begins to sob, pulling him into her lap. His head rests on her thighs, soaking her Ann Taylor pants with thick blood and she cradles him. She feels like she's in a movie, a lover has been killed and all she's waiting for now is the rain to pour down on her. She's so weak and venerable every since the things that've happened, but she never shows it. Until now.

She strokes his hair away from his face, thick and matted and leaking red raindrops into her sidewalk palms as she rocks gently back and forth. Walter doesn't move out from behind his desk. He refuses to believe his son has died again. Astrid's on the phone and somewhere in the distance there are sirens growing closer.

But everything between the lovers is silent. And it seemed to be the loudest sound in the room.

* * *

_What do you think? Leave me a review please! It'll motivate me to update faster! _


End file.
